Then a little knot of charcoal-burners came down the path, and
naturally halted to speak to Buldeo, whose fame as a hunter reached for at
least twenty miles round. They all sat down and smoked, and Bagheera and the
others came up and watched while Buldeo began to tell the story of Mowgli, the
Devil-child, from one end to another, with additions and inventions. How he
himself had really killed Shere Khan; and how Mowgli had turned himself into a
wolf, and fought with him all the afternoon, and changed into a boy again and
bewitched Buldeo’s rifle, so that the bullet turned the corner, when he pointed
it at Mowgli, and killed one of Buldeo’s own buffaloes; and how the village,
knowing him to be the bravest hunter in Seeonee, had sent him out to kill this
Devil-child. But meantime the village had got hold of Messua and her husband,
who were undoubtedly the father and mother of this Devil-child, and had
barricaded them in their own hut, and presently would torture them to make them
confess they were witch and wizard, and then they would be burned to death.

“When?” said the charcoal-burners, because they would very much
like to be present at the ceremony.

Buldeo said that nothing would be done till he returned,
because the village wished him to kill the Jungle Boy first. After that they
would dispose of Messua and her husband, and divide their lands and buffaloes
among the village. Messua’s husband had some remarkably fine buffaloes, too. It
was an excellent thing to destroy wizards, Buldeo thought; and people who
entertained Wolf-children out of the Jungle were clearly the worst kind of
witches.

But, said the charcoal-burners, what would happen if the
English heard of it? The English, they had heard, were a perfectly mad people,
who would not let honest farmers kill witches in peace.

Why, said Buldeo, the head-man of the village would report that
Messua and her husband had died of snake-bite. THAT was all arranged, and the
only thing now was to kill the Wolf-child. They did not happen to have seen
anything of such a creature?

The charcoal-burners looked round cautiously, and thanked their
stars they had not; but they had no doubt that so brave a man as Buldeo would
find him if any one could. The sun was getting rather low, and they had an idea
that they would push on to Buldeo’s village and see that wicked witch. Buldeo
said that, though it was his duty to kill the Devil-child, he could not think
of letting a party of unarmed men go through the Jungle, which might produce
the Wolf-demon at any minute, without his escort. He, therefore, would
accompany them, and if the sorcerer’s child appeared— well, he would show them
how the best hunter in Seeonee dealt with such things. The Brahmin, he said,
had given him a charm against the creature that made everything perfectly safe.

“What says he? What says he? What says he?” the wolves repeated
every few minutes; and Mowgli translated until he came to the witch part of the
story, which was a little beyond him, and then he said that the man and woman
who had been so kind to him were trapped.

“Does Man trap Man?” said Bagheera.

“So he says. I cannot understand the talk. They are all mad
together. What have Messua and her man to do with me that they should be put in
a trap; and what is all this talk about the Red Flower? I must look to this.
Whatever they would do to Messua they will not do till Buldeo returns. And so
——” Mowgli thought hard, with his fingers playing round the haft of the
skinning-knife, while Buldeo and the charcoal-burners went off very valiantly
in single file.

“I go hot-foot back to the Man–Pack,” Mowgli said at last.

“And those?” said Gray Brother, looking hungrily after the
brown backs of the charcoal-burners.

“Sing them home,” said Mowgli, with a grin; “I do not wish them
to be at the village gates till it is dark. Can ye hold them?”

Gray Brother bared his white teeth in contempt. “We can head
them round and round in circles like tethered goats —if I know Man.”

“That I do not need. Sing to them a little, lest they be lonely
on the road, and, Gray Brother, the song need not be of the sweetest. Go with
them, Bagheera, and help make that song. When night is shut down, meet me by
the village —Gray Brother knows the place.”

“It is no light hunting to work for a Man-cub. When shall I
sleep?” said Bagheera, yawning, though his eyes showed that he was delighted with
the amusement. “Me to sing to naked men! But let us try.”

He lowered his head so that the sound would travel, and cried a
long, long, “Good hunting”— a midnight call in the afternoon, which was quite
awful enough to begin with. Mowgli heard it rumble, and rise, and fall, and die
off in a creepy sort of whine behind him, and laughed to himself as he ran
through the Jungle. He could see the charcoal-burners huddled in a knot; old
Buldeo’s gun-barrel waving, like a banana-leaf, to every point of the compass
at once. Then Gray Brother gave the Ya-la-hi! Yalaha! call for the
buck-driving, when the Pack drives the nilghai, the big blue cow, before them,
and it seemed to come from the very ends of the earth, nearer, and nearer, and
nearer, till it ended in a shriek snapped off short. The other three answered,
till even Mowgli could have vowed that the full Pack was in full cry, and then
they all broke into the magnificent Morning-song in the Jungle, with every
turn, and flourish, and grace-note that a deep-mouthed wolf of the Pack knows.
This is a rough rendering of the song, but you must imagine what it sounds like
when it breaks the afternoon hush of the Jungle:—

One moment past our bodies cast

No shadow on the plain;

Now clear and black they stride our
track,

And we run home again.

In morning hush, each rock and bush

Stands hard, and high, and raw:

Then give the Call: “Good rest to all

That keep The Jungle Law!”

Now horn and pelt our peoples melt

In covert to abide;

Now, crouched and still, to cave and
hill

Our Jungle Barons glide.

Now, stark and plain, Man’s oxen
strain,

That draw the new-yoked plough;

Now, stripped and dread, the dawn is
red

Above the lit talao.

Ho! Get to lair! The sun’s aflare

Behind the breathing grass:

And cracking through the young bamboo

The warning whispers pass.

By day made strange, the woods we range

With blinking eyes we scan;

While down the skies the wild duck
cries

“The Day — the Day to Man!”

The dew is dried that drenched our hide

Or washed about our way;

And where we drank, the puddled bank

Is crisping into clay.

The traitor Dark gives up each mark

Of stretched or hooded claw;

Then hear the Call: “Good rest to all

That keep the Jungle Law!”

But no translation can give the effect of it, or the yelping
scorn the Four threw into every word of it, as they heard the trees crash when
the men hastily climbed up into the branches, and Buldeo began repeating
incantations and charms. Then they lay down and slept, for, like all who live
by their own exertions, they were of a methodical cast of mind; and no one can
work well without sleep.

Meantime, Mowgli was putting the miles behind him, nine to the
hour, swinging on, delighted to find himself so fit after all his cramped
months among men. The one idea in his head was to get Messua and her husband
out of the trap, whatever it was; for he had a natural mistrust of traps. Later
on, he promised himself, he would pay his debts to the village at large.

It was at twilight when he saw the well-remembered
grazing-grounds, and the dhak-tree where Gray Brother had waited for him on the
morning that he killed Shere Khan. Angry as he was at the whole breed and
community of Man, something jumped up in his throat and made him catch his
breath when he looked at the village roofs. He noticed that every one had come
in from the fields unusually early, and that, instead of getting to their
evening cooking, they gathered in a crowd under the village tree, and
chattered, and shouted.

“Men must always be making traps for men, or they are not
content,” said Mowgli. “Last night it was Mowgli — but that night seems many
Rains ago. To-night it is Messua and her man. To-morrow, and for very many
nights after, it will be Mowgli’s turn again.”

He crept along outside the wall till he came to Messua’s hut,
and looked through the window into the room. There lay Messua, gagged, and
bound hand and foot, breathing hard, and groaning: her husband was tied to the
gaily-painted bedstead. The door of the hut that opened into the street was
shut fast, and three or four people were sitting with their backs to it.

Mowgli knew the manners and customs of the villagers very
fairly. He argued that so long as they could eat, and talk, and smoke, they
would not do anything else; but as soon as they had fed they would begin to be
dangerous. Buldeo would be coming in before long, and if his escort had done
its duty, Buldeo would have a very interesting tale to tell. So he went in
through the window, and, stooping over the man and the woman, cut their thongs,
pulling out the gags, and looked round the hut for some milk.

Messua was half wild with pain and fear (she had been beaten
and stoned all the morning), and Mowgli put his hand over her mouth just in
time to stop a scream. Her husband was only bewildered and angry, and sat
picking dust and things out of his torn beard.

“I knew — I knew he would come,” Messua sobbed at last. “Now do
I KNOW that he is my son!” and she hugged Mowgli to her heart. Up to that time
Mowgli had been perfectly steady, but now he began to tremble all over, and
that surprised him immensely.

“Why are these thongs? Why have they tied thee?” he asked,
after a pause.

“To be put to the death for making a son of thee — what else?”
said the man sullenly. “Look! I bleed.”

Messua said nothing, but it was at her wounds that Mowgli
looked, and they heard him grit his teeth when he saw the blood.

“Whose work is this?” said he. “There is a price to pay.”

“The work of all the village. I was too rich. I had too many
cattle. THEREFORE she and I are witches, because we gave thee shelter.”

“I do not understand. Let Messua tell the tale.”

“I gave thee milk, Nathoo; dost thou remember?” Messua said
timidly. “Because thou wast my son, whom the tiger took, and because I loved
thee very dearly. They said that I was thy mother, the mother of a devil, and
therefore worthy of death.”

“And what is a devil?” said Mowgli. “Death I have seen.”

The man looked up gloomily, but Messua laughed. “See!” she said
to her husband, “I knew — I said that he was no sorcerer. He is my son — my
son!”

“Son or sorcerer, what good will that do us?” the man answered.
“We be as dead already.”

“Yonder is the road to the Jungle”— Mowgli pointed through the
window. “Your hands and feet are free. Go now.”

“We do not know the Jungle, my son, as — as thou knowest,”
Messua began. “I do not think that I could walk far.”

“And the men and women would be upon our backs and drag us here
again,” said the husband.

“H’m!” said Mowgli, and he tickled the palm of his hand with
the tip of his skinning-knife; “I have no wish to do harm to any one of this
village — YET. But I do not think they will stay thee. In a little while they
will have much else to think upon. Ah!” he lifted his head and listened to
shouting and trampling outside. “So they have let Buldeo come home at last?”

“He was sent out this morning to kill thee,” Messua cried.
“Didst thou meet him?”

“Yes — we — I met him. He has a tale to tell and while he is
telling it there is time to do much. But first I will learn what they mean.
Think where ye would go, and tell me when I come back.”